4/12

Past Event

The event will be streamed live from this page. There is no registration to view the live stream. Online audience can submit questions to events@urban.org.

Join the Urban Institute for a discussion about a new data source on evictions in the US and its value for community response.

A shortage of affordable rental housing leaves millions of US households struggling to pay rent and avoid eviction. As documented by the sociologist and ethnographer Matthew Desmond and other housing scholars, evictions destabilize renters’ current housing and affect their work, health, education, and future housing options. Preventing eviction can disrupt risky life trajectories that add costs to communities and impede opportunity. As policymakers, practitioners, researchers, and community leaders search for solutions, newly accessible data can catalyze evidence-based decisionmaking and advocacy by those on the front lines of the eviction crisis.

How can communities use these data to improve residential stability for all households? Matthew Desmond, the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City and a recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, will speak to his latest research on evictions nationwide. A panel of practitioners and researchers will discuss the implications of the data.

Photo: Tracy Munch looks over her belongings after an eviction team removed all of her family’s items from her foreclosed house on February 2, 2009 in Adams County, Colorado. Photo by John Moore/Getty Images.